A POLARISED POLITY ? YES, INDEED. BUT SINCE WHEN AND WHY ?

A POLARISED POLITY ? YES, INDEED. BUT SINCE WHEN AND WHY ?

The BJP has not started the polarisation of the Indian polity. It was begun by the Islamic invasions 1350 years ago when the forcible conversion of the Hindus to Islam was initiated on a war footing. That eventually led to the Partition of India and is now, by way of reaction, leading to Hindu resurgence which is being dubbed polarisation.

There has always been a polarised polity in India, for the Muslims have by doctrinaire injunction always been exclusive in their outlook and whenever harmony has reigned, it has been on account of the meek Hindu giving in to the demands of the aggressors and not putting up any noticeable resistance rather than so much as the Muslim accepting the Hindu's faith as as true as his, a few benign sects of Sufism notwithstanding. The so-called syncretic culture cannot wash away Islamic aggression in India and the tale has been the desecration of Hindu temples, their destruction and using the rubble to build mosques at the same site. Hindu civilisation survived somehow, its evolution slowed down and its numbers made to decrease through enforced conversion. Resentment there was and wherever circumstances were propitious, resistance rose. This has been the saga.

Even the Buddhists suffered terrible persecution, their main seat of learning, the Nalanda University burnt down, its great library reduced to ashes.

The Sikhs suffered as well with three of their ten Gurus, Guru Arjan Dev, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh killed by the bigoted Mughal emperors Jahangir and Aurangzeb.

Hence, to say that all was well and fine during the Islamic reign in India would be a travesty of truth.

When the British overwhelmed India politically, the Muslim community was made conscious of their separate identity from the Hindus again, this time by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. He was the one who originally propounded the 'Two Nation Theory' which eventually led to the dismemberment of India and the creation of the first Islamic republic in the world, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Thus, polarisation was not first effected in the polity by the RSS or the BJP which did not exist even then but that polarisation has been the natural outcome wherever Islam has set its foot in right religious way. The faith itself polarises the world as those belonging to the faith and those who are unbelievers, and this it does with a great religious fervour and with direct divine commandment. What happened post the founding of the RSS was that Hindus disenfranchised, so to say, using democratic terms, found in the RSS ideology a resonance of what they held dear in their heritage which had been historically mauled and molested by murderous tribes from the Middle East and their neighbourhood. The present day polarisation of the polity, masterfully being engineered by the RSS-BJP-Sangh Parivar combine, and that, too, openly, is a direct result of Islamic theological policy of exclusiveness and world conquest through conversion and imposition of Islamic law. Let Islam renounce these fundamental tenets and you will see a wonderful synthesis of Hindu-Muslim culture in India, for Hinduism is never intolerant and is always inclusive. And Christianity must also follow suit by stopping its equally mischievous campaign for conversion.

But will Islam comply? Or, can it? Then, must the Hindu, by continually giving in to the demands of a relentlessly ruthless alien religious machinery, cease to exist as a vibrant culture in the land of its birth by progressively going down in relative numbers till this country has also been converted to an Islamic state? Why not Islam and Christianity for once introspect and not pretend that all is inclusive with their ideologies before they point a single finger at any who they dub as Hindutvavaadi? By the way, let this defence of affirmative Hinduism be not misconstrued by any as my open or tacit support to the murderous goons and their machinations in the name of cow vigilantism or the lynching of innocent Muslims for whom I shed my tears and have written in indignation in the past as well.

However, all things said and done, Hindus must consolidate themselves despite the odds. Else, the grandest spiritual civilisation the world has ever seen will be wiped out of existence in the not so distant future by the proselytising religious inroads of Islam and Christianity. And when Hinduism dies, the world will die, too, for exclusive cults cannot sustain civilisation for long nor can communist atheism nor gross scientific materialism.

Hence, Hindus must awake from their slumber in the right regal way like their royal rishis of yore to spread the unifying principles of their dharma across the earth. Then and then alone will Krishna be vindicated in his 'dharma sungsthaapan' (establishment of righteousness), then and then alone will Rama be rightfully honoured as the exemplar of all that is virtuous and good. Till then mere sloganeering and making profit out of perfidious politics in the name of these royal sages will neither benefit the country nor the civilisation we rightfully call Hindu or Indian.

Written by Sugata Bose